Living in a Fairy Tale
by Switchblades and Sunsets
Summary: He finally figured out how to lie to himself. And he never stopped believing the lie. AU with plenty of Ponyboy angst.


**All rights to S.E Hinton. Sorry for torturing your oh-so-lovely characters.**

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"Johnny was dead. But he wasn't. Johnny was somewhere else- maybe asleep in the lot, or playing the pinball machine in the bowling alley, or sitting on the back steps of the church in Windrixville. I'd go home and walk by the lot, and Johnny would be sitting on the curb smoking a cigarette, and maybe we'd lie on our backs and watch the stars. He isn't dead, I said to myself. He isn't dead. And this time my dreaming worked. I convinced myself he wasn't dead."- The Outsiders, page 150._

_Riiiiiiing. _The school bell announces the end of another day of school. I walk down the hallway, whistling softly. Not much homework today. Heads turned and voices stop in midsentence as I make my way through the crowds of students. Same old, same old. Nothing I can't deal with. I don't need them. Don't need nobody.

Socs don't bother me anymore these days. That's one good thing that came out of that whole murder fiasco. So I walk home by myself. The streets are clambering with people, just like in the halls. What's the matter with everyone? What's the big hurry? Humans are always rushing, rushing, without even knowing why, without the slightest hint of reason.

I smile to myself, making my way towards my house. Maybe Johnny'll stop by for a game of poker today. We haven't done that in a while.

XXXXX

"Darry, what're we gonna do?" I asked softly. "He needs help. This isn't gonna sort itself out, and we both know it." I sat on the couch, staring at the TV without seeing it, not really. I had no idea what show was on. It was one of those rare days when both me and Darry had a day off, and we were both trying our hardest to enjoy it.

But _how_? How could we, when we both knew there was something seriously wrong with our kid brother? We'd been trying to ignore it for weeks now, praying to God that the absolute denial was just part of Ponyboy's way to cope with his own grief. It was almost eerie, the cheerful way he'd been acting ever since Johnny and Dallas' deaths. And he brought up their names _so_ casually... Like they were both just a phone call away.

It gave me chills. Was this how people with mental illnesses acted? Had Ponyboy finally snapped?

Darry was in the kitchen, making dinner. The sound of water had stopped instantly when I'd spoken, though, and he was out in a second. "I don't know," was all he said. Whispered, really.

There were more lines on Darry's face than I'd ever seen before, and he had the exhausted expression of someone twenty years older than him. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see. Wanting it all to go back to the way it had been. It was only a year ago that Mom and Dad were still with us, Goddamnit! Please, just let us just go back... But Pony had always been the one with the out of control imagination, not me. I almost grinned, but then I remembered that all this was all his stupid _imagination's_ fault, this belief that Johnny and Dally were still alive. My throat tightened, and I felt like I was choking.

XXXXX

I arrive at my house pretty soon after. I step in the door, and notice that it's strangely quiet. Not normal for us. For a second, I feel something like apprehension in the pit of my stomach, a feeling I haven't felt for so long it's almost foreign. But it goes away as quickly as I came, and I toss my backpack beside Soda on the couch, yawning.

"Hey Soda, Darry." I laugh at their matching expressions. "What's eating you guys today? I'm starving, when's dinner?" I run into the kitchen, rummaging through the contents of the fridge and pulling out a banana.

"Hey... Pony," Soda says, way too slowly, "How was, um, school?"

They're both looking at me strangely, and I wonder why. "Fine, fine. The usual," I say cheerfully through bites of banana. I'm all caught up with the work I missed now, and school's starting to be easy again.

"Dinner's in the oven," Darry seems to force out. I laugh again at how stiffly they're both now standing, like they're anticipating an explosion or something.

I nod once, then ask, "Can I go to the movies later? Might go with Johnny if I find him. After homework, of course."

They both flinch at the word "Johnny", and it's starting to get a little weird how they've kept their eyes on me all this time and never moved a muscle. I raise my eyebrows, waiting for an answer.

Darry clears his throat like he's about to make some grave announcement, and that feeling of something being just _not right_ returns, again only for the smallest fraction of a second. Like when a bunch of situations collide and you get that tiny flash of a dream you had three nights ago. The one you forgot all about. It slips past you as fast as it came, though, and it leaves you wondering what on earth that was all about. That's how I feel for the tiniest millisecond. But it's less like a dream; more like déjà vu, like something from a past life.

I don't have the time to think about it further though, because that's when Darry says something impossible, something so impossible it sounds ridiculous coming from my always-logical older brother.

"Ponyboy," his voice is firm, hard as steel without even a hint of a joke it must be. Because how can it be anything else? "Johnny's not here anymore, you know that right, kiddo? Dallas isn't either. They're both dead, remember? They-" He continues, but I don't hear a word more. That's a sick joke, that is. Not the least bit funny. Not when Johnny talks about killing himself way too much to be healthy and Dally spends half his life in the cooler. He's always saying how the cops would love for him to commit _that_ crime, the inexcusable one.

It's not something to joke about. Darry should know better.

I turn towards him slowly, staring him in the eyes. I'm not angry- I don't get angry very much at all these days, the mood in my head is almost always just a calm sort of buzz that separates me from the world, distances me in a way- but I don't want him joking about things like that. I can see Sodapop through my peripheral vision, frozen in place with an almost _scared_ look in his eyes, though scared of what I have no idea. I ignore him.

"What're you talking about, Darry?" I say in a very low voice. In any other environment it would be impossible to hear, but right now the house is completely silent. "What are you saying? Johnny and Dally are _not_ dead. Of course they're not. Any moment one of them could come through the door. Do you want them hearing you saying they're _dead_? How would _you_ like it, huh?" I shake my head, my whole body cold in a way that I instinctively know a jacket won't fix. "How would _you_ like it?" I repeat, my voice now no more than a whisper.

Darry and Soda look dumbstruck, and it would be funny if I wasn't in the mood to laugh. The bone-deep chill still hasn't gone away. It's the last thing on my mind though.

"Pony..." Soda reaches out a hand hesitantly towards my shoulder, and a part of me knows it's meant to comfort me but the more overpowering part is reminded of a tourist at a zoo reaching in a tentative hand to pet an exotic-looking new animal. Like I'm nothing but a circus freak. Like he really believes the lie. Because the lie's not the truth, it's _not_, of _course_ it's not. Do they really believe it?

Am I the only sane one here?

And suddenly I just can't stay in this house any longer, the air is too hot and stiff and it's suffocating me. I don't think; just run. Out the door and down the street in seconds. It's what I do best. Total reliance on pure instinct. And my instinct is telling me I need to get away from here. Fast. _Now_.

Soda and Darry call after me, but I don't stop. They can't catch me anyway, not on my slowest day and especially not now, not with adrenaline on my side. I'm forcibly reminded of the day when Darry hit me and it led up to the whole horrible chain of events. When Johnny killed that Soc. Or was it me that did it?

I'm not sure about the specifics, and I don't really care at the moment. So what if I can't remember what exactly happened after Windrixville? All I know is that the only people dead in my life are my mom and dad. And I never want anyone else to die. Not if I can help it, and I _can_. So I keep running. Because I know they're both wrong.

When my footsteps finally slow and my adrenaline wears off, I find myself in the park. Beside the fountain that started everything. _Why's it not red?_ I remember it's supposed to be red. For a while I just stand there, staring at nothing. It's chilly out and I'm not wearing a jacket but I'm just radiating heat. Unlike the first time this happened, I don't immediately want to go home. At least not for a while. Not for a _long _while.

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